Fun & Easy Ideas for Working On Non-Fiction Skills

So...I was sitting in superintendent's day this week and I was sitting next to a co-worker.  We were all bored out of our minds (shhh..don't tell).  I look over, and he is holding this book.  Now, it was extremely random but of course, my mind started thinking of how great this book would be for my students.  (Why was he holding this book, NO CLUE....if you know this coworker, you wouldn't be surprised).  

Anyway!!  This was the book he was holding:

Being the nosy girl I am (and bored too), I grabbed it and flipped through.  It was filled with paragraphs of fun facts and answers to questions kids may have such as "Was there really a Johnny Appleseed?" and "Which is stronger steel or a spiderweb?"  

How would I use this book with my students?

• Teaching non-fiction texts.  Use graphic organizers to help students pull out important information.
• Building vocabulary
• Cause/effect
• Predicting and inferring
• Categorization: there are several "stories" related to similar themes/categories.  Can students group them together?
• EET!!  Students can use their EET to describe the different items being talked about such as a spider web, dinosaurs, and more.

My next goal, to borrow this book and not give it back! OOPS..did I just say that?! Shhhh!

While finding this book on Amazon, I found some other ones that looked PERFECT for speech groups!!

Do I need to say more?! Yay, wh- questions!

What books/materials/references do you use to teach students curriculum-based speech & language skills using non-fiction texts???